USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > A history of Buffalo : delineating the evolution of the city > Part 8
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Its property at the Central Department was reported to be $450,000 in value; in the German Department, $55,000; in the equipment of the railroad departments, $5,000; mak- ing a total of its real property $510,000. With this it had acquired an endowment fund of $116,365. The amount of its substantial possessions were, therefore, $626,565; against which its total liabilities were $138,563.
Auxiliary to the Y. M. C. A., and projected by its ener- getic secretary, Mr. A. H. Whitford, a noble enterprise of true benevolence, inspiring a thoroughly practical under- taking of business, was carried out in 1910, by the erection of a large ten-story fire-proof Men's Hotel, contiguous to the central building of the Y. M. C. A., and conducted by the Association as lessee. The hotel provides 288 bed- rooms, accommodating 350 men, at prices ranging from $2
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to $3.50 per week, and from 35 to 75 cents a night. How admirable a benefit it offers, especially to young men of small means, is too plain to need any description. The building, like those of the "Mills Hotels" in New York City, which gave the suggestion of it, is in every way of the first class in construction and equipment, costing $225,000, for which funds were raised on mortgage bonds. Two citizens, Mr. John D. Larkin and Mr. William A. Rogers, were the main promoters of the undertaking.
Most of the extraordinary achievement recorded in this sketch has come from energies aroused in the last thirty years. Many men have contributed to them; but there was one, the model merchant and good citizen, Robert B. Adam, who did more than any other. His official service in the Association began in 1879, and ended when he died, June 30, 1904, at which time he had been its continuous president for seven years.
The Guard of Honor, which has been mentioned hereto- fore as having grown into existence from a Bible class con- ducted by Miss Charlotte Mulligan at the Wells Street Chapel, was organized formally for religious and benevolent work on the 16th of January, 1868, at a meeting in the Buffalo Female Academy building, on Johnson Park. Its meetings were in that building, near the residence of Miss Mulligan (who was always, during her life, the guide and leader of the society) until 1884, when it bought the prop- erty at 620-622 Washington Street, where it built a com- fortable and well provided house for its own meetings and for the temporary lodging of homeless young men who need friendly help toward the getting of employment, or encour- agement in lifting themselves out of bad courses in life. Bed, bath and clean clothes at this place often do, in them- selves, a good missionary work; and other influences, sym- pathetic and religious, were brought to bear. These are
1
2
John D. Larkin
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wege wock and from 35 etis a night. How wwwale . benefit it offers, espcially to young men of wwill meiny, is too plain to need any description. The building, like those of the "Mills Hotels" in New York City, winch gave the suggestion of it, is in every way of the first class in construction and equipment, costing $225,000, for which funds were raised on mortgage bon M. Two citizens, Mr. John D. Larkin and Mr. William A. Ruger , were the main promoters of the undertaking.
Most of the extraordinary achievement recorded in this Cetch has come from energies aroused in the last thirty cars. Many men have contributed to them ; but there was voe, the model men hant and good citizen, Robert B Adam, "In Jul more than any other. Huodical service on the JOHN D. LARKIN. od when he died, June
Manufacturer born Buffalo, New York, September 29, et 1845; educated in the public schools. Took up the manu-
facture of soaps and toilet articles and in 1875 founded the
Larkin Company which was incorporated in 1892, with Mr. hereto- foFarkin as president, Director Commonwealth Trust Com- con- duRany; Columbia National Bank, and Central National Bank, Street member of Buffalo, Ellicott, and Manufacturers' Clubs of
Chanch was organized fre sus and benevolent Buffalo, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, and National Arts Citib Of New YORR : Republican In politics, at a meeting in the Buffalo Female Academy building, on Johnson Park. Its meetings were in that building, near the residence of Miss
Ways dinting her life, the guide and
emle si fe
m-
ws and
who need
... et, or encour-
Courses in life. Ded, batb sod clean Onthes to or disce often do, in them- selves, . gól -mart int jed other influences, sym- pathetic and close were brought to bear These are
John D. Larkin
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YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
still afforded at the Guard of Honor Home, where a Sunday School and Bible classes are also carried on.
The Women's Christian Association, which recently has taken the name of the Young Women's Christian Associa- tion, was organized in 1870 for benevolent work among poor women, and this was directed mainly for many years to the maintenance of a Boarding Home. With the change of name, it has entered many and large fields of work, aiming at "the spiritual, intellectual, social and physical develop- ment of young women." The Association was first estab- lished in a room on Pearl Street; opened a Home later on Eagle and Ellicott streets, and built, finally, under its old organization, a commodious habitation at No. 10 Niagara Square. Under the new regime, in 1904, it acquired the building then vacated by the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, at the angle of Mohawk and Genesee streets, and its newer work is centered there, while the former Boarding Home is still maintained.
Now, at the Mohawk Street center, says the general sec- retary, Miss Lillian E. Janes, "through its lunch room, gymnasium and sewing classes, its Bible classes, student branches, and the branch at the Larkin Works, it touches 1,200 women and girls daily. It has now a budget of $60,000, employs a staff of about twenty secretaries and teachers." Its work is organized in the following depart- ments : Educational, Religious, Physical, Student, Indus- trial, Cafeteria, Home, and Traveler's Aid. The present property of the Association is valued at $250,000. It has risen quickly to a place among the largest institutions in the city.
Trinity Co-operative Relief Society, in connection with Trinity P. E. Church, was organized in March, 1880, for more efficiency in the benevolent undertakings of the
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Church. Its first officers were Mr. William H. Gratwick, president; Miss Maria M. Love, vice-president; Miss Emily Ganson, secretary; Miss Elizabeth C. Rochester, assistant secretary; Mr. Horatio H. Seymour, treasurer. Its head- quarters for four years were in Trinity Parish Building, on Mohawk Street; then in rooms at the Fitch Institute, on Swan and Michigan streets. When the district plan of dividing charitable relief work among the Churches of the city, suggested by Miss Love in 1895, was adopted and car- ried out by the Charity Organization Society in the follow- ing year, the Trinity Co-operative Society accepted one of the largest and most needy of the districts assigned.
It leased a house at 258 Elk Street, and opened there the Trinity House Settlement, with Mrs. Bradnack in resi- dence, and with equipments of a library, reading room and facilities for the organization of boys' and girls' clubs. In 1903 a splendid new development was given to the Trinity House Settlement, by the erection for its use of a beautiful and most perfectly adapted building, on Babcock Street, Nos. 280-282, given as a memorial of the late Mrs. Stephen V. R. Watson, and bearing the name of Watson House. In this it is provided with everything that can be useful in its work. It has rooms for library and for readers, for manual training, for kindergarten, for girls', boys' and men's clubs, for gymnasium, for diet kitchen, for domestic service classes, for public baths, etc. Eight teachers and workers were in residence in 1907.
The Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Buffalo feels pride in being the first godchild of the kin- dred institution in Boston, of like name. It was organized on the 5th of February, 1884, at a meeting held in the Fitch Institute building, which Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, presi- dent of the Boston Women's Educational and Industrial Union, addressed. The undertakings it contemplated were
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WOMEN'S EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL UNION
planned and have been carried out, as nearly as practicable, on the lines of the parent institution.
Every promise of its original program has been fulfilled effectively, with many additions to its scope. A Sargent gymnasium, a free reference library (named in memory of Miss Mary Ripley, a much beloved teacher in the public schools of the city), a "Handiwork Exchange," a free em- ployment bureau for women, a Girls' Union Circle, or Club, a Noon-Rest Lunch-Room, are among the fixed provisions of the Union for its clientage of women. It conducts train- ing classes for attendants and home nursing; classes by trained teachers in cooking, dressmaking, millinery and laundry-work, and other classes for children in housework, cooking and sewing. It provides lectures on hygiene, health and law, by prominent professional men and women. It organizes social, musical and literary entertainments. It arranges a "country week" in the summer for many work- ing girls. It finds homes for needy children and women. It has collected, in the twenty-four years of its existence, over $30,000 of wages, pensions, rents and other claims for women who were being defrauded. Its exertions have secured many important reforms of law in the interest of women; have brought about the appointment of police matrons, of women on the board of managers of the State Hospital for the Insane, of a woman on the city board of school examiners, and of women physicians in all State in- stitutions where women are housed. Its activities are end- less, and always directed with good judgment to good ends.
Many capable, public-spirited and benevolent-minded women have devoted time, labor and thought without stint to the many-sided work of this admirable Union; but an unquestioned supremacy among them has always been con- ceded to Mrs. George W. Townsend, the prime mover in their organization and their continuous president for
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twenty-one years. Mrs. Townsend left Buffalo in Decem- ber, 1904, to make her home in Hawaii, but was not per- mitted to resign the presidency till the following May, when she was made honorary president, and the active presidency was conferred on the previous vice-president, Mrs. Henry C. Fiske.
In the beginning of its work the Union was given the use of rooms in the Fitch Institute building by the Charity Organization Society. In 1886 it was able to purchase the old homestead of Judge Potter (later of George R. Bab- cock) on Niagara Square, and yet to hold a "Freedom from Debt Festival" in 1889. In 1891 it received a gift from Mrs. Esther A. Glenny, for building a Union Hall, and another gift of $5,000 from Mrs. Charlotte A. Watson for a Domestic Training Department. In 1893, having already outgrown its home, it felt able to rebuild more commo- diously for itself on the same excellent site, and did so, opening its new building by a public reception on the Ist of November, 1894. At the end of another three years the Union was again free from debt. Nothing could afford better evidence of wise management and a strong, true spirit than these facts.
On its twenty-first anniversary, in 1905, the Union began efforts to raise a permanent endowment fund of $100,000.
A corps of the Salvation Army was first established in Buffalo in January, 1884, by the then Captain and Mrs. William Evans, now Colonel Evans of Boston. They held their first meeting on Lafayette Square on the first Sunday of that month, and opened indoor meetings in the old Court House building, at the corner of Clinton and Ellicott streets. After about twelve months, the lease of this build- ing having expired and no other hall being available at the time, the corps was closed and the officers withdrawn from the city.
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THE SALVATION ARMY
It was not until five and a half years later that the work of the Army was reopened in Buffalo by Major (now Colonel) Richard E. Holz, who had been drawn to enlist- ment in its ranks during the previous period of its opera- tions here. In December, 1889, Major Holz revived the work in Buffalo, with headquarters on the upper floor of a building the site of which is now covered by the Ellicott Square block. Other corps were soon established at Black Rock, Cold Spring, East Buffalo, and elsewhere. The Ger- man Corps was established about 1893 in a hall on Broad- way. In the following winter the first Men's Shelter and Industrial Home, with a woodyard, was opened on Com- mercial Street, and a Slum Post, so called, was established on Canal Street. In the fall of 1894 the old church build- ing of the First Baptist Church, on Washington Street, was secured for No. I Corps, and was occupied until the present permanent headquarters were established, at Nos. 11-13 East Mohawk Street, in property purchased in 1906.
In 1896 Colonel Holz was transferred from the command at Buffalo, and his successors have been Colonel Sully, Brigadier Joseph Streeton, Colonel William McIntyre, and Major George F. Casler. The work has grown and its fruits have increased steadily through all the years. For a number of years past the Divisional Headquarters of the Salvation Army have been in 350 Ellicott Square.
Nearly if not quite the most important of the under- takings of the Salvation Army is that which established, in 1903, the Industrial Home for men out of employment, now located in a purchased building, at 97 Seneca Street. In 1908 the Home reported eighteen men employed regularly as "wagon men," who gather up waste material of every description, which people are glad to have riddance of, and which the managers of the Home contrive to turn to use. This gives constant work to a tailor, a shoemaker, a cabinet-
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maker and an upholsterer, and to numbers of the transient guests of the Home, who sort and bale the rags and paper that are brought in. The importance of this Industrial Home is widely appreciated by citizens and officials; and in all parts of the country there are grateful men who have been bridged by it over periods of misfortune or inspired by it to lift themselves out of the sloughs of an evil life.
Another of the invaluable institutions of the Salvation Army is the Rescue Home, for fallen women, which is also a temporary home for women in need. This was estab- lished in 1899, at 325 Humboldt Parkway, from which place it was removed in 1903 to the large dwelling of the late David F. Day, No. 69 Cottage Street, which was bought by Colonel McIntyre for the permanent seat of the Home, and nearly cleared of debt. Its first matron, Major Mary Wagner, who conducted the Home for a number of years, is credited with "splendid work." The later superin- tendents, Adjutant and Mrs. Hagg, are said to be the first married pair in the Salvation Army to have charge of an institution of this kind.
The Rescue Home was consolidated with the Prison Gate Mission in March, 1902, and its officers conduct the work among discharged prisoners that was done by the Mission before. A law enacted in 1907 empowers police justices in Buffalo to commit women who are arrested for drunken- ness and vagrancy to the Home, giving them the chance of rescue which the penitentiary would most likely destroy.
The Buffalo Deaconess Home of the Methodist Episco- pal Church is an outgrowth from work that was organized systematically by the Women's Home Missionary Society of the Buffalo District of that Church in 1888. The dea- conesses "are women set apart by the Church for any form of missionary labor." They are of three classes, for parish
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MISSIONS AND SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS
visiting, for nursing and for teaching, each receiving in- struction according to the work for which it is prepared. The Home for such instruction and for centering the work of the deaconesses was instituted in June, 1890. Six years later the property now occupied, at 292 Niagara Street, was bought. The corner-stone of a large additional building was laid in June, 1908.
At the opening of the Home it had two deaconesses ; there are now fourteen. Its present work includes the con- ducting of a free kindergarten, industrial instruction, and boys' clubs, together with "travelers' aid," for which two deaconesses are kept in attendance at the New York Central Railway Station. The new building will add a free dis- pensary, an infirmary and a gymnasium.
The Christian Homestead Association, endowed by an anonymous gift of a considerable fund, was incorporated in 1891. It took up an important rescue mission work which Miss Joanna D. Cutter (afterwards Mrs. Walter N. Hinman) had instituted on Canal Street, and this was con- ducted under Mr. and Mrs. Hinman's charge very nearly until their deaths, which occurred within a single month, in 1896. The Association established, also, the Christian Homestead lodging house on Lloyd Street. Both the res- cue mission and the lodging house are still carried on, but the former has been removed to the neighborhood of the Steel Plant at West Seneca.
The Volunteers of America, organized by General Bal- lington and Mrs. Maud B. Booth, who had previously been at the head of the Salvation Army in America, established the Buffalo branch of its work in May, 1891, with head- quarters and a Women's Home at 93 Broadway, and a Men's Home at 496 Michigan Street. A Children's Home has since been added, at North Evans, a few miles from
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the city. The work of the Volunteers, under Major and Mrs. F. C. Fegley, is kindred to that of the Salvation Army.
By a few weeks of precedence, Westminster House was the first of the social settlements undertaken in Buffalo. It was opened on the 17th of September, 1894, in pursuance of an assumption by Westminster Church of relief work in a definite district of the city, according to the district system which the Charity Organization Society proposed in that year of much distress. The Rev. Dr. S. V. V. Holmes, who became pastor of the Westminster Church in the previous year, had been seeking the opportunity for an opening of social settlement work, and his church and congregation gave ready support to the plan. They began with the lease of a small cottage on Monroe Street, and the work grew until property has been acquired extending through to Adams Street, including two lots on Adams and a separate building on Monroe for a men's club. Besides a comfort- able two-story dwelling for residents, the buildings occu- pied supply quarters for a gymnasium, a kindergarten, a diet kitchen, a penny provident bank, a public library de- pository, and several clubs, for boys, mothers, etc., as well as for classes in such arts as carpentry, chair caning, cooking and millinery. The House staff includes regularly a head- worker and assistants, a district nurse, a kindergartner, and several volunteer workers, among whom has generally been the assistant pastor of Westminster Church. A choral society, which gives a yearly recital, is one of the organiza- tions connected with the House. A summer camp at Fort Erie, for brief outings to people of the Westminster House neighborhood, is maintained. The support of the House is borne chiefly by Westminster Club, the men's society of Westminster Church, which contributes annually between $3,000 and $4,000, and looks generally after its needs.
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During the trying winter of 1893-4 the Women's Circle of the First Presbyterian Church became impressed with a feeling of unsatisfactoriness in the relief-work done, for the reason that it left no permanent effect. It was determined that such work of the church should be concentrated on some limited section of the city, and conducted in a more systematic way. Upon consultation with the Charity Or- ganization Society, a district of extreme neediness was taken, accordingly, within which "the church holds itself pledged for relief work, except where individuals have some religious affiliation. These are then referred to the nearest pastor, priest and rabbi."
For leadership in the work, Miss Mary Remington, who had been conducting a successful institution called Wel- come Hall, at New Haven, Conn., was engaged, and came to Buffalo in November, 1894. A house on Seneca Street, No. 307, was rented and fitted properly for occupancy at once. Miss Remington's residence was in the house, and it was named Welcome Hall. A diet kitchen was estab- lished, in co-operation with the District Nursing Associa- tion, and meetings, Sunday school and sewing schools begun. By the end of the year these quarters were outgrown, and a warehouse at the rear was rented and reconstructed for use.
A few months later Miss Remington was authorized to rent two neighboring tenements, in order to expel from them a saloon and a dancing hall. A free kindergarten was then established in one.
So the work at this location went on, until 1897, when the need of larger and better accommodations for it was answered by two generous friends, Mr. J. J. Albright and Mrs. Sidney Shepard, at whose expense the present beau- tiful Welcome Hall, and its accompanying cottage, were built. The new Hall was opened in January, 1898. Rooms for twelve residents are provided ; for women in the
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cottage and for men in the Hall. The latter is equipped amply with baths, class-rooms, club-rooms, a library room in which the Public Library maintains a branch, a gymnasium, a laundry, and a diet kitchen. The workers of the settle- ment, resident and non-resident, conduct many organiza- tions of clubs and classes, for all ages and both sexes, inter- esting great numbers of the populous neighborhood, in athletic games and exercises, in entertainments and social gatherings, and in the learning of such practical arts as sewing, cooking, basketry, typewriting, stenography and printing. On Sundays religious services and Sunday schools are held. Miss Remington resigned her connection with Welcome Hall in 1898.
Neighborhood House, a social settlement on Goodell Street, is supported by a Neighborhood House Association, composed largely of men and women connected with the Unitarian Church. It began with a library, bank, girls' club, boys' club and a sewing school, in double parlors on Hickory Street, in November, 1894. As the work was extended larger quarters were secured, first at 92 Locust Street, and finally, in May, 1902, at the old homestead on the corner of Goodell Street and Oak. The annual report of the Association for 1907 showed six workers in residence at the House and forty-one non-resident. "Our twenty-one boys' clubs," says the report, "with an average membership of seventeen, form the largest part of our family circle at the settlement. They come from various parts of the east side, but largely from our neighborhood. They consist of groups of boys, twelve to twenty-five years of age, from one street, shop, factory or school which has given them a com- mon interest. They are organized with a set of officers. Each club pays two dollars per month rental." Girls' and women's clubs, singing, sewing, dressmaking and cooking classes, a kitchen garden, a library, and a bank, with public
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entertainments, friendly visiting, helpful service to sick and needy, and medical inspections, make up the work of the House. In summer it conducts a camp on the lake shore, near Wanakah, fifteen miles from the city, where successive groups enjoy themselves for two or three days or a week.
On leaving Welcome Hall, in 1898, Miss Mary L. Rem- ington ventured boldly, with almost no means, to undertake the establishing of a "Gospel Settlement" in the Canal Street quarter, which has always been of the worst possible repute. A few fellow workers were willing to join her; a few good friends would give what aid they could; and she had one strong supporter in Mrs. George H. Lewis, without whose sustaining hand, in the first years of her labor, it is doubtful if she could have won through.
She and her associate volunteers began work in some rooms of the old Grand Trunk Railway station, on Erie Street, just below the Canal. The use of the rooms, with some furniture, was given; but the "settlement" that Miss Remington contemplated would require a different place. On the other side of Erie Street, opposite her rooms, stood an old abandoned hotel building, the Revere House of better days, which had become one of the worst of the crowded and filthy tenement houses of the city, swarming with a population of about a hundred Italian families. In ac- quainting herself with the neighborhood she visited it often, and longed for an opportunity to clean it up, and make it an object lesson of the decency of life that might be lived in such a place. At length she called on the agent of the building to talk of renting some part of it. The talk re- sulted in his offering to sell the whole building to her for $10,000, on easy terms. Two hundred dollars in bank was all the capital she had ; but much thought and careful reck- oning determined her to make the attempt. She placed
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